


I Surrender To The Strawberry Ice Cream

by jmtorres



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Harsh Financial Realities, M/M, Other, Trope Fic, Tumblr Fic, accidentally married, ace derek, for everything in my life really, i blame niqaeli, sleeping together in the strictly literal sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So it's trope fic; the trope is accidentally married. Stiles has moved in with a werewolf and his dad wants to know when he's getting grandkids and Stiles and Derek haven't even had sex. At least partially because Stiles never got around to asking what exactly their relationship is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Surrender To The Strawberry Ice Cream

So the thing is, Stiles is not UNAWARE that he and Derek seem to be in some form of unspoken committed life partnership, but he can't figure out how to ask about it, because he feels like significant parts of it are his fault. 

When he first moved in with Derek - well okay, he wasn't meaning to move in, he was just going to crash for a couple of days, but the house renovations went to hell in a hand basket when the contractor found black mold radiating from the leaky corner of the roof Stiles and his dad had never gotten around to fixing the entire time Stiles was in high school, and which his dad had apparently just parked a bucket under when Stiles went away to college. Anyway, Stiles was just going to crash at Derek's place, like, on the couch, except that he announced that he could not sleep on a couch where he knew people had bled, he'd bled, Derek had bled, was there anyone in the pack who hadn't bled on the couch, anyway shove over you can share - 

So it's his own fault he keeps waking up curled into the curve of Derek's body. Derek is a champion cuddler; Stiles thinks it has to be a werewolf thing because he has no other explanation for why Derek needs to hold him so much and yet keeps all instances of morning wood such resolute non-events. Stiles has complained to Scott about it - Scott is kind of dubious about the cuddling being a werewolf thing, and Stiles replies, so a _born_ wolf thing, or, I don't know, socialization, a raised in a _pack_ thing. Stiles has told Scott about all the seasons of cuddling: fall and spring are pretty typical spooning, winter involves Stiles in his own personal burrito of blankets with Derek draped on top, and summer features a lot of elbows to the ribs and complaints of _dude, I'm HOT_. Derek will usually back off about six inches and keep his hand on Stiles's hip. A few times Stiles hit the bed first and starfished out to take maximum advantage of the cool sheets. This ended with Derek sleeping on his arm, and his arm going numb. Stiles will take being the little spoon over being unable to feel his arm for like an hour after getting up. 

Right, so, then the thing about the house. See, Derek's apartment was pretty shitty, and Stiles complained about it a lot. Like, he was not completely sure it was an improvement over a house with mold. The thing he didn't realize right away was that Derek was squatting; he didn't realize until he said something to Derek about getting maintenance up about the kitchen sink and Derek stared at him for a moment and asked, _what's_ wrong with the sink? I'll fix it - and Stiles said no, man, you don't have to do that, call building maintenance, because he felt guilty about clogging the sink with cheerios (somehow?!) and Derek replied that there WAS no maintenance, and Stiles was all set to help Derek sue his landlord when Derek gently explain how he wasn't actually paying rent. That a lot of people in the building weren't, and no one really cared, he was pretty sure the building was someone's tax write-off, and what did Stiles care it wasn't like HE had offered to chip in on rent - 

And Stiles was sort of gaping. And, finally he said, is it because you can't _afford_ \- Did you already run through all the life insurance from the fire? Yes, Derek snapped, on Peter's care. (There is an Obamacare sticker on the Rav4's bumper; Stiles had been a little startled to find Derek had any political affiliations whatsoever, but apparently fighting through the insurance system as it was in 2005, how much of Peter's longterm care it didn't cover, how he stopped being insured after the sabbatical period from his job was over, how no other insurer would take him, and COBRA, and how much COBRA cost and how it wasn't a longterm solution either - Derek has political feelings about one thing, basically, and it's healthcare.) But long story short, Derek has no kind of inheritance, and Derek lived hand to mouth. Derek replied, on the subject of rent, that he could now, maybe, but he hadn't really been able to figure out how when he claimed the place, supernatural events had kept him from holding down a steady job. 

(Derek did not really have a steady job, exactly, at this point, but he had a stream of irregular terrible jobs. Derek seems to zero in on the kind of jobs Mike Rowe regularly featured on television. Most of them are gross and almost all of them are dangerous and tend to involve, like, using explosives to clean things of substances you really don't want to think about. Derek tends to get prickly about it if you ask him why. One answer Stiles got early on was "it's not like it'll kill me." Another, much later, when they had the house together, involved a confession about how Laura had acquired the Camaro in a poker game reading tells and had shortly thereafter been ejected on suspicion of cheating, the moral of which seemed to be that not only was it unsustainable to use werewolf superpowers to gain advantage over ordinary humans, but that Derek personally felt it was dishonest.) 

Anyway, Stiles felt like an ass for complaining about the shitty apartment after that, so he _felt_ like he'd initiated the whole thing when Derek, sitting on the floor with his arm up under the sink, said, if you hate it so much we could get a house. you'd have to be on the mortgage, though, for us to get any kind of decent interest rate. Stiles boggled, and Derek just kept talking about credit ratings. Stiles had student loans but he was current on them, paid on time every month. Stiles had a credit card that was his dad's account that his dad had added Stiles to when he went away to school, so he was actually getting the benefit of his dad's credit history as well. Stiles was also paying for cable internet at the apartment because he'd just thought Derek was a luddite, not that he might have other reasons not to set up services, but it was another regular bill Stiles paid. Derek, meanwhile, had a shitty credit rating from a series of bad life choices, falling off the grid for a few years, not having a regular address to get bills at for a while, and so on. How did you afford the Rav, Stiles asked at one point; Derek was pulling a lot more disgusting things than cheerios out of the trap as he replied how he'd had a decent downpayment from selling the Camaro, but it was still on payments for the next million years. 

So Stiles admitted that fine it made sense for him to be on the mortgage, and then the fact that they were getting a house together seemed like a done deal before they'd even started looking. 

They got a place where Stiles had his own room, but Derek mentioned he was getting a bigger bed so Stiles figured they were still sharing and furnished his room as an office. It turned out to be a California King, which was a major difference from the cramped double bed they'd been sleeping in, and at first Stiles thought it was some kind of hint, that maybe Derek wanted more space. He was still a limpet in the middle of the night, though, so Stiles gave up trying to figure that one out. 

Two years later the bed is almost paid off and they're still furnishing parts of the house as they can afford it and their finances are pretty hopelessly tangled. It's. It's really like they're married. 

Stiles is aware of this fact. 

They've never had sex. They've never talked about it. Once, back in the shitty apartment, Derek walked into the bathroom to brush his teeth while Stiles was jerking off in the shower, and Stiles - like, Stiles had been trying to be polite, using the shower, but he figured, werewolves, surely Derek was still aware? So he wasn't sure if Derek walking in meant the shower was a LOT more effective at blocking werewolf hearing than he'd expected, or if Derek just flat out didn't care. Stiles has complained to Scott about this as well; Scott said he wouldn't think most showers would be that loud but are the pipes bad in Derek's place? In any case, Stiles had decided not to try to unbalance the masturbation equilibrium and get in Derek's face about it, with the end result: he doesn't actually know what Derek thinks. 

One day Stiles's dad casually asks him when he and Derek are planning to get married, you know, a ceremony, a wedding, and Stiles replies, I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. 

So you DON'T deny it, his father says, all gotcha! at him. 

What is there to deny, it's my life, Stiles grumbles. 

Am I getting grandkids out of this, asks the Sheriff, and Stiles repeats, I'm gonna have to get back to you. His dad raises an eyebrow, and Stiles says, these are things we have not discussed. we have a whole topical area we do not speak of. it's mostly feelings-based. we're kind of fucked up, i'm aware. 

but he uses this as a way to broach the subject with Derek one morning, he starts with, my dad wants to know when we're getting married, and without looking up, pours his coffee and moves onto, like i don't know if that's appropriate for whatever our relationship actually is, like, what are we, are we hetero life partners because i feel like i should mention i'm not that hetero 

i'm not, Derek says, and Stiles waits for him to finish that thought. I'm not really attracted to anyone, Derek says. So not hetero. But not. Really anything. 

I'm sorry, Stiles says, and Derek frowns at him and says Don't, I'm not, it's not a _condition_ , it's just who i am. It's. I thought you were okay with it. 

I'm okay with it! Stiles insists, defensive, I just wanted to know. 

Because it's something you want, Derek says, eyes narrowed. Sex. 

Are we fighting right now? Stiles asks. 

Are we? Derek parrots at him. Only he sounds a little plaintive underneath the jab. 

Dude, all I was saying is my dad wants me to let him walk me down the aisle and give him grandbabies to spoil. Us being who we are, I don't think sex is actually required, Stiles points out. I mean, we'd be looking at adoption anyway, right. 

Derek is staring at him. 

Stiles stuffs an entire jam-slathered slice of toast in his mouth. 

Not, Derek repeats, required. 

Well, if you don't want to, Stiles mumbles around the toast. And swallows. And like, clearly I've been doing fine without it. So. 

Okay, says Derek. 

Okay, Stiles replies. 

So when were you thinking, says Derek. For the wedding. 

Not that Stiles had gotten that far, but it doesn't stop him from announcing he always wanted to be a June bride.


End file.
